Courtesy of TheObamaCrat.com

Archive for ‘News’

Yesterday morning, reluctantly waking to the rude static of the clock radio I reach for the snooze but decided against ten more minutes of sleep. Instead I readjust the dial trying to find the local NPR station’s elusive, ever-shifting frequency. Squeezed in between the new Latino station and another springing reggae on unsuspecting early morning listeners, the hourly news had already broken in.

Much was made over the controversial Citizen United Supreme Court decision and subsequent unlimited political campaign funding observed during the 2010 and 2012 elections breaking all previoius spending levels. In tadem with this, questionable tax-exempt nonprofits began freely dumping large sums into political campaigns, most prominently on Republican campaigns. The struggle to find who these large donors were found their way into the courts where judgements fluctuated erradically depending on the who heard each case. At one point Karl Rove’s nonprofit attached to his SuperPAC, Crossroads was ordered to make its funding sources public but he refused waiting for a favorable appeal. Unfortunately, his appeal was successful and the voting public was blocked from finding out who was contributing such large sums of money.

Do you know more about the news than the average American?

Test your knowledge of prominent people and major events in the news, by taking our short 13-question quiz. Then see how you did in comparison with 1,041 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a national survey conducted online Jan. 18-24 by the Pew Research Center. The new survey includes a mixture of multiple-choice questions using photographs, maps and symbols.

ProPublica has compiled a mass of information and charts about the current gun debate to filter out the facts from the overwhelming horde of rhetoric. It’s worthy of anyone’s attention who is more interested in gaining a thorough perspective on the debate.

Both times in fairly recent years federal minimum wage was increased with the cooperation of Republican leadership. In 1996, the Republican-controlled House under Newt Gingrich, the minimum wage was raised from $4.25 to $5.15 over a 2 year period. The next wage increase took place a decade later, in 2006-2007, when Democrats won back control of the House. They found support for the increase in then President, George W. Bush. This instance raised the minimum rate to its current level of $7.25 per hour.

With each new bit of regulation proposed a screeching chorus rises from industry pronouncing the dire consequences set to befall the country if even the slightest utterance of such rules are dared spoken. How many times have these warnings of cataclysm been heard? And how many times have they come to pass?

Senate Democrats will soon release a bill to counter massive cuts from the looming sequestration. In short the bill will institute a minimum tax rate for millionaires and eliminate some tax subsidies, specifically those subsidizing crop insurance for large farms, a program the CBO says will cost upwards of $90 billion over the next decade.

Predictably, the Senate’s much criticized minority leader Mitch McConnell, has come out against the proposed bill saying,

We can debate the long-term policies on individual military targets and associated killings but let’s not allow emotions to dictate the focus. It appears, once again, drones by virtue of their name are being lumped into a broad, longheld set of policies set to deal with targeting individuals or groups who pose significant threat to the US or civilians around the world.

As the debate over the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), or drones, as a weapon against terrorism and domestically by public agencies, a new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found a majority of Americans support the program overall. There is concern over civilian casualties associated with these strikes, as there should be. All possible attempts should be made to avoid civilian deaths but it is worthy of note that since 2009 the rate of civilian deaths has dropped significantly. This reduction was…